


Still Breathing (But I Wish I Weren't)

by undeadpsycho13



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Songfic, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 03:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8312836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeadpsycho13/pseuds/undeadpsycho13
Summary: Minho was still alive, yes.Still alive, but more like a walking corpse than a human.  Or so Thomas and Frypan and everyone else thinks.  To Minho, this is normal.  Or rather, nothing can be normal again, so this is the new normal.  Minho doesn’t think things will go back to the old normal anymore.  No, he knows thing will not go back to the old normal again.  Not without Newt.  Never without Newt.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I can't remember if Minho knew about Newt's suicide attempt, and I'm too lazy to read the book again, so for the purpose of this fanfic he will know, just so if you're confused and go like, "Wait a minute, Minho didn't know about any of this", that's why.
> 
> Also, there are a lot of other things I weren't sure of, so yeah. Just so you know. If it's wrong, that's why.
> 
> Oh right, disclaimer. The song is Still Breathing by Green Day, and it's FREAKING THE BEST. You should listen to it sometime.

_I'm like a child looking off on the horizon,_

_I'm like an ambulance that's turning on the sirens,_

_Oh, I'm still alive._

_I'm like a soldier coming home for the first time,_

_I dodged a bullet and I walked across a landmine,_

_Oh, I'm still alive._

 

From since he could remember, from the start of the Glade, and he had a feeling even before that, Minho always had Newt to stand by him.

It was Newt who stood at the top of the Homestead with him the day they completed its construction, Newt who he buried Nick with, their tears dripping on the lifeless body of their lost friend and merging into a single stream, Newt, whom he had run with in the Maze, up until The Incident. Even when they weren’t together, his thoughts still lingered on the other. The first time Minho ran on his own, his mind and spirit and happiness was still back in the Homestead with Newt. That day he was stuck overnight in the Maze with Thomas, it was the voice of Newt that repeated over and over in his head, almost annoyingly, “ _Don’t die on me, ya bloody shank._ ”

Except Newt could never be annoying, not to Minho.

When the Doors refused to close that fatal night, Newt was the one curled up beside Minho, comforting and taking comfort simultaneously from the other. During the Battle with the Grievers, Newt had cut down the blade that had snuck past Minho’s defense and would have pierced him. Even in the Scorch, the other had always been there. They had dodged bullet after bullet together, and lived to tell the tale.

Or at least Minho lived to tell the tale.

Sometimes, he wished he hadn’t.

 

_Am I bleeding? Am I bleeding from the storm?_

_Just shine a light into the wreckage, so far away, away…_

 

He had found the corpse by accident.

It was dark out, to dangerous for a walk, and though he knew he shouldn’t, that there were Cranks out on the streets, Minho didn’t care. Didn’t care about life, didn’t care about death. Newt was a Crank. Newt, who had always been there, who he had laughed with and cried with and screamed with and kissed with. So what did life matter anymore?

He walked aimlessly for a while, the walk uneventful, until he had tripped on something. He froze, for a moment anticipating a hand around his ankle or a half-crazed face in front of him, but none of those things appeared. Cautiously, he turned his flashlight on and shone it on the obstacle in his way.

He was met by the face of a dead friend, a bullet through its forehead.

For a moment, there was just stunned silence.

Just laboured, quickening breathing.

Just a heart pounding so loud it rung in his ears.

And then the scream ripped its way out of his throat, spiralling into the night sky.

 

_'Cause I'm still breathing,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing on my own._

_My head's above the rain and roses,_

_Making my way away,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing on my own._

_My head's above the rain and roses,_

_Making my way away,_

_My way to you._

 

“Newt,” Minho whispered, heart-broken, to the corpse that he held in his arms.

Then louder, “Newt!” And again, and again. His cries became incoherent, slurred together into wails of pain and grief. Minho didn’t care if a Crank came and killed him right there, so that he may forever lie and rot next to the other. In fact, he sort of wished that someone would come and put him out of his misery. Alas, the world was forever against him, and the moment he truly wished to die he wasn’t allowed to do so. Newt had survived the Maze, he had survived the Scorch, and now he had been taken by a goddamned disease and a bullet to the head.

It wasn’t Newt’s death that bothered him.

The moment he had pointed a gun at him at the Crank Palace, turned against his own lover, Minho had accepted him as brain-dead, if not dead. Even smiled at the prospect of it. After all, it was what Newt had always wanted, wasn’t it? And end to it all, wasn’t that the key? But never, not once, had Minho actually considered that he would lose this boy forever. He had always fantasized somewhere at the back of his mind that a cure would be found, or something of that sort.

So really, it wasn’t Newt’s death that bothered him.

Rather, it was the realization that he was alone in this messed up world that sent Minho crashing to his knees.

 

_I'm like a junkie tying off for the last time,_

_I'm like a loser that's betting on his last dime,_

_Oh, I'm still alive._

_I'm like a son that was raised without a father,_

_I'm like a mother barely keeping it together,_

_Oh, I'm still alive._

 

Minho was still alive, yes.

Still alive, but more like a walking corpse than a human. Or so Thomas and Frypan and everyone else thinks. To Minho, this is normal. Or rather, nothing can be normal again, so this is the new normal. Minho doesn’t think things will go back to the old normal anymore. No, he knows thing will not go back to the old normal again.

Not without Newt. Never without Newt.

So he continues to live this zombie type of lifestyle, laughing when required, eating when required, sleeping when required, but never really thinking about anything. In the back of his mind, somewhere in the depths, he can hear Newts voice, hear the sounds of protest, telling him to, “Shucking live your life, slinthead. Don’t bloody give up because I’m… not with you anymore.” Even this subconscious voice refuses to acknowledge Newt’s gone. And Minho can’t help it. He can’t help “bloody giving up”, as Newt would say, because anything other than that is simply not an option.

Because this is the reality, this is the truth that no one will accept:

A small, or maybe not-so-small, part of Minho died with Newt.

 

_Am I bleeding? Am I bleeding from the storm?_

_Just shine a light into the wreckage, so far away, away…_

 

Paradise is the farthest thing from paradise Minho has ever known.

Everything is colorful, bright, loud, cheerful, everything that the world is not, as though trying to make everyone forget everything that has happened, everything that they’ve lost, every _one_ that they’ve lost. And the others all buy it. Thomas has his precious Brenda to replace the lost Teresa, Frypan goes around flirting with the different girls from Group B, but Minho, Minho only has the ghosts of Newt’s smiles to grasp at ephemerally, only memories of his laughter to chase after hopelessly. They all have a way to cope, everyone except Minho.

Eventually, he figures the only way to escape from mental pain is physical pain. At first, he just falls “by accident”, hurting himself in ways that seem indeliberate. And then he doesn’t care. He doesn’t know when it started, but sometime along the way he stopped caring all together. He knew it was after Newts… leaving, and sometime before the self-proclaimed “Paradise”, but everything in between is a haze, and when the others talk about that time all he can do is grimace convincingly and nod, then tune them out, so exactly when… he can’t really put a finger on it. All he knows is that he doesn’t care anymore.

The first time the blade slid through the soft skin of his wrist and cut through the flesh, it was the closest feeling to relief and ecstasy that he had ever felt. And the trustworthy blade never failed him. Not once. Not once in the next God-knows-how-many months.

Until it did.

 

_'Cause I'm still breathing,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing on my own._

_My head's above the rain and roses,_

_Making my way away,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing on my own._

_My head's above the rain and roses,_

_Making my way, away, away…_

 

Minho still breathed, still remained, still lived, even as his lost lover rotted on somewhere insignificant, forgotten, gone, barely more a than a whisper in their memories. This is what tore the more fortunate up, every single day.

But then, maybe the dead one could be considered more fortunate, in some senses.

Every day, all Minho can think about is Newt. Even as the others move on, he still dwells on memories. He is tortured by what could have been, what would have been, but what wasn’t. He is haunted by the accusing glares of the dead, the chilling voices of those who used to be, the slideshows of images that plague his mind day and night, death scenes replayed over and over again.

The Grievers, lunging towards Alby, Alby, who had always been there, ever since the beginning. The knife, spinning in slow motion towards Chuck, Chuck who became something like the baby in the Glade, a child of the older Gladers. Worst of all, Newt, who he didn’t see die, not really. But his mind, his twisted mind comes up with gruesome pictures every day to torture that poor soul of his. Sometimes, it’s another Crank that kills him, rips out his brains and feasts hungrily on them. Sometimes, it’s members of WICKED, gunning him down carelessly. Never has he ever imagined Thomas doing the sinful act, like it actually was, but all the other possibilities make it just as painful.

Minho’s waking moments are spent at the shrine he built for the dead, secluded in the depths of the forest in a location only he knew. Every day, he is torn up with regret; even his dreams do not spare him.

Every day.

And every night.

 

_As I walked out on the ledge,_

_Are you scared to death to live?_

_I've been running all my life,_

_Just to find a home that's for the restless._

_And the truth that's in the message,_

_Making my way, away, away…_

 

Minho stood at the ledge of the cliff that loomed over the beaches of Paradise.

He was ready. He stepped up to the ledge, took a deep breath. This is how Newt had wanted, to die, back in the Maze. And so this he was going to die. To make it up to the other, in way. A maniacal, demented way. But a way to end the eternal cycle of pain and misery, nonetheless.

It was a way of ending everything.

And starting, at the same time, everything anew. Starting in death. That’s how screwed up Minho’s life was. He laughed bitterly at this. _As if I ever had a choice_.

He did not choose for the Flare to hit the earth; no one did. He did not choose to be immune; genetics did. He did not choose to be part of the Maze; Thomas and Teresa and Janson and whoever else the shuck did. He did not choose for Newt to die; fate did. Every single major decision that affected his life, he had no say in it whatsoever. That was what ultimately made himself feel so small, so insignificant. All his life, he was nothing by a puppet, a pawn, a piece controlled by external forces. Controlled by WICKED. Controlled by the Right Arm. Now, he was finally going to make a decision, all by himself. He was going to cause his own death, with no interference, no judgement, no one saying _you can_ or _you can’t_. In life, he never had control over anything. In death, he would control everything.

The only problem was the voice, the pained voice in his head that screamed at him over and over again, “ _Don’t do it Min, don’t you bloody do it!_ ”

Newt.

Except Newt was never a problem, could never be a problem, not to Minho.

And so, taking a breath, he jumped eagerly to his own demise.

 

_'Cause I'm still breathing,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing on my own._

_My head's above the rain and roses,_

_Making my way away,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing on my own._

_My head's above the rain and roses,_

_Making my way, away,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing,_

_'Cause I'm still breathing on my own._

_My head's above the rain and roses,_

_Making my way, away,_

_My way to you._

 

The fall down was exhilarating, to say the least.

The cliff was a good three hundred metres tall, so it was almost as though jumping of The Cliff back in the Maze. He had always wanted to do that, to see what it would be like to jump. This was a good enough substitute. A voice was calling out to him, Newt’s voice, growing louder and louder with the closening of the ground, rushing at him with full force. Yet in those moments before he hit the ground, as consciousness slowly drifted out of his grasp, staring death full in the face with each second that past, a small part of him felt scared, scared by the sudden comprehension that rushed at him all at once, by the vastness of it all: he was going to die.

In some ways, a small part of Minho regretted leaving the other Gladers, regretted leaving Thomas and Frypan and Gally. But though he knew they would mourn him greatly, he also knew that they would move on easily; after all, wasn’t that what they did when Newt… left?

But that regret was pushed down forcefully, because now, now there was no time for regret. It was too late for that nonsensical thinking.

And so he thought about other things, not that he had much time to think about anything anyways. He thought about the way Newt’s lips curled into a smile when they first set out into the Maze, brimming with hope that would in time diminish into nothing. He thought about the graceful curve of his limbs before The Incident, when he sprinted through the Maze free and untethered. Or, well, as free as he could have been in the Maze. He thought of the glint in his eyes when Minho told him he loved him, despite the circumstances, despite everything that was going on.

And those were the images that stayed with him until the end.

Those were the last things Minho saw.

Newt.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry I'm not being nice like a stereotypical Canadian should be.
> 
> I'll try to live up to the standards next time. :)


End file.
